Seòmar agus comataidhean

Absolutely. Extended producer responsibility for packaging, which, I am afraid, does not roll beautifully off the tongue, is a groundbreaking provision that is being brought in, as you correctly said, at UK level. It is a polluter-pays scheme. The idea, at the simplest level, is that all producers of packaging will pay fees to a UK-wide scheme administrator, which will take those fees and allocate them to local authorities all over the UK so that they can run efficient and effective household packaging and collection services.

Those matters are still very much under discussion, and I understand that the discussions are going well. I have been pushing for the process of allocation to be transparent and to take into account the geographic nature of regions—I am thinking, for example, of the additional challenges that lower-density population regions such as islands and rural areas face—so that each council gets a fair allocation. My understanding of the process so far is that that has been accepted by the four nations and that the allocation of the funding will go directly from the scheme administrator to local authorities. That is my understanding of the state of those discussions. I am very keen that that is additional money, and I have discussed that in the conversations that I have had with my ministerial counterparts in the UK and the other nations. If we are asking councils to do more, they need that additionality so that they can implement the scheme.

I understand that. Councils have been on a journey towards the existing code of practice. Looking ahead, we absolutely need to go through the co-design process. One of the challenges of co-design is that one has to wait for the outcome of that process. In the financial memorandum, we have given some illustrative examples of where we would like to start, such as the single-use coffee cup charge, and food waste and food reporting. Where we know that that is the provision that we intend to work with initially, we have provided funding around those initiatives.

The open question is, after those initial initiatives, how would all of us, collectively, like to move forward? After reporting on food waste has been achieved, what other sectors would be interested? Members have talked to me about textile waste, construction waste and so on. We could take forward reporting on those things after we have brought in reporting on food waste. In the financial memorandum, we have presented all the information that we have about how we are going to start the journey strategically, and about specific provisions, where we already know what those will be.

From the bill?

I think that a lot of people are looking at the detail of the policy, for example on what exactly we are looking at in the code of practice for local authorities. What exactly are we expecting from local authorities in terms of targets? Which single-use items are we talking about, and how will those charges look? We do not have that information; getting it is part of the co-development process. When people say that they are uncertain about this, I interpret that as meaning that they want to know exactly what the code of practice will look like. I want to know that too, but that will be the outcome of that co-design process.

No, I do not worry that that will lead to less control over costs. It will lead to more specific and detailed certainty around the costs. If I were to set out now what we thought the costs would be for something that was, for example, five years down the road, you would be right to say, “Do you know what? I don’t think you can stand up those numbers.” The bill will put us across the starting line, and we can then dial into each project—the one for single-use cups, for example—and work out exactly what the costs will be. We will co-develop those projects, so the costs will emerge as options emerge.

For example, we all have experience of the plastic bag charge. It is for businesses alone to implement that charge; local authorities are not involved in implementing it. Businesses can recoup the full costs that they feel are needed from the charge, and then they give the rest away, according to the rules. That is an example of a version of implementation that has almost no cost to local authorities, because the costs are managed in a specific way, but the charge could have been implemented in a totally different way so that there were costs.

As we develop the policies, there will be substantially different options on the table, hence the range. When we go through the co-design process, local authorities might say, “We want to be involved in this one, and we will incur costs,” or they might say, “No, let’s leave that one with business, and that’s where the costs will be.” If I were to specify, that is where the inaccuracy would come in. I need to be accurate in setting out the strategic costs of putting in place this strategic bill, and we will get into the specific costs of each policy at the correct time, as the policies are developed.

I have not had a meeting with her on that subject, but all the paperwork, including the financial memorandum, is shared with ministerial colleagues so that they can see what is coming down the line. This is a process of development, so the specific cost for each policy will be scrutinised at the appropriate time, following the appropriate process.

I keep coming back to charging for single-use cups, because we have the excellent example of the plastic bag charge. That is the kind of provision that we are looking at. That charge does not incur costs for local authorities, except in relation to some enforcement. Implementation sits with businesses, which are allowed to recoup the costs. There is everything from capital investment and the recycling improvement fund—which are, of course, the subject of budget negotiations—all the way down to measures that can be implemented substantially without Government expenditure. Given that the bill covers that range, each piece will need to be scrutinised, and that, of course, is exactly the process that will be followed.

The provision around littering from vehicles is a good example of tackling the type of culture that you are talking about. Research by, I think, Churchill Insurance shows that one in seven people admit to having littered from a vehicle. That is clearly a very high proportion of people. One of our challenges at the moment is that it is difficult to enforce provisions on littering from a vehicle, because the current legislation requires that you go after the vehicle owner. The bill proposes that we change that legislation to allow enforcement to be much more broad and effective. The intention is that that would act as a deterrent, because we know that, if people can be caught and get fined even a relatively small amount, it has a deterrent effect. All those things together, including better design and more effective enforcement, will help to move that dial along.

Yes, I will start, then hand over to colleagues for the details. With all enforcement provisions, there is always a discretionary element whereby the local authority can decide how much enforcement is appropriate for it. For example, in the household requirement space, we were looking at the contamination of recyclate. The bill provides local authorities with new tools, which they asked for, and new fixed-penalty notices to enable them to help people to comply with that so that recycling does not become contaminated. That is not only a source of revenue but a choice that they can make a business case for. If they are losing money because they have to sort contaminated recyclate or pay for it to go to incineration, they might choose to raise their enforcement costs. A lot of this gives the local authority discretion to choose how it wishes to do it. I will hand over to colleagues for the detail.

The costs are also subject to additional provisions being added over many years. For example, we discussed single-use vapes and how quickly that new product has grown in only the past couple of years. If those sorts of products were developed in the future, we would need to react to them. The bill would put in place the enabling powers to allow us to react to those kinds of products coming up in the future, but, of course, we cannot anticipate what they might be.

Correct.